


Leaving To Be Happy

by mediocrityatbest



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22655188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mediocrityatbest/pseuds/mediocrityatbest
Summary: Roman and Remus are rather well off, rich sons of a well-known business man. Roman is expected to marry well and one day, surely, Remus will finally settle down himself. There's just one problem: Roman might as much disdain for this plan as his brother.
Relationships: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	Leaving To Be Happy

“I can’t live like this,” Roman muttered, staring out the window. His suit suffocated him and exhaustion weighed him down from just coming back from his fourth date in half as many days. All with fancy, rich women who were, admittedly, very pretty and wore stunning dresses and all of them were vying for a spot in Roman’s house as his wife. He was rich and handsome and polite and so many other things that his parents had strained so to bring him up as. He was so proper Roman had been asked by other men if he even had a personality past it. Many were jealous that all eligible ladies would disregard dates with them if Roman gave them the time of day, and Roman wished it wasn’t like that. These ladies, while kind and perfectly pressed in every proper way, were not exactly...his type.

Put simply: Roman was unebelievably gay. He yearned for the kind of man that could sweep him off his feet and love him unendingly, a man like in all those novels he’d read! But all those men were unbelievably straight, and in a society like this, where could Roman expect to find a man like that, but like him?

“Then don’t,” Remus said, the other side to Roman’s coin. While their parents had tried to train propriety into Remus from a young age, it never stuck. Remus had a disgraceful mustache and a strange streak in his hair and he often shouted out whatever he thought without considering if it was appropriate or appreciated. He stood as opposite to Roman in every single way that mattered, every way the public saw. But there was something they did hold in common, as close to his chest as Roman kept it.

Put simply: Remus was unflinchingly gay. He wore bruises he got like badges of honor, seduced men where anyone could see, flaunted himself around in dresses and vests like he didn’t have a care in the world. Everything Remus did was a show and an act of rebellion, and Roman often wondered who really was better off: the hidden or the exposed?

“I can’t just start acting like you,” Roman said, shaking his head. “I’ll be lynched.”

“Ooh, sounds fun.” Remus clapped his hands together, today decked out in a real suit, almost identical to Roman’s. The only difference was that Remus’s was almost completely unbuttoned and very immodest.

“How do those men you find do it? Most of them are married and put on airs to pass, but I can’t imagine a life shackled to someone I don’t love.” He sighed, lightly tapping his head against the window.

“Most of them are more miserable than you can imagine and duller than shit to top it off,” Remus said. He laughed when Roman gagged.

“You are disgusting.”

“On my honor,” Remus said, bowing.

“What honor?” Roman said, rolling his eyes. Remus cackled even more, dancing around the room in a way that could get him locked in the crazy house if he wasn’t careful who saw. Roman drew the curtains closed and turned to face Remus fully, examining the scuff in his shoes and rips in his pants. What had he been doing to cause such imperfections in his clothing? Probably something much worse than what he was doing now, but perhaps it was something more innocent. Oh, what Roman wouldn’t give to stain his pants from laying in the grass with a man he loved, to feel someone else’s lips on his own, to spend his days in bliss and in love, requited and normal and unbearably happy.

“Roman,” Remus said, suddenly much more serious. He stood stock still in the middle of the room, contemplative. “What would you say if I told you there was a way to be us?”

“I would laugh and tell you to stop mocking me before I hit you,” Roman said, more than used to this conversation, of fictional futures and wonderful lives and people who stood in a crowd the same way they did. It hurt more every time they talked about it because Roman was becoming more and more aware, with all the pressure to find a nice girl and settle down, that that future was only the hope of someone who didn’t want to accept reality. It could never happen, and Roman didn’t want to face that. He wasn’t sure he could.

“But what if I meant it?” Remus all but whispered. Slowly, Roman looked up at him, taking in every twitch of his brown eyes, the tremble in his hands. It was something Remus was after just as much if not more so than Roman, a future where he didn’t have to wear bruises like fine jewelry or only receive kisses in a place no one else might see. One day, Remus would probably also have to claim it was just a phase and settle down with whatever woman would have him just to appease their parents. It was not something they talked about.

“How could you possibly mean it?” Roman asked, incredulous. “Do you?”

Remus nodded. “People are heading West. A man I know told me that there’s not as many laws or rules out there. It’s harder to get into others’ business and most don’t bother. He said he was heading out there to make a new life for himself.”

“What does that have to do with our situation?” Roman said quietly.

“He’s going there to be with men, Roman. He left his wife with all their belongings but for a bag of clothes and left in the night for a place where people like him, like you and me, won’t be ostracized for things we can’t control.” Remus hesitated. “We could go. We could go there, be gone by the morning.”

“What will Mother and Father think?” Roman protested.

“Who cares? They’d never accept us for what we are, why should we give their concerns any consideration? They already think I’m sick.”

“You are sick,” Roman said, a smile tugging at his lips.

“Not for the reasons they think.” Remus smiled back, spinning around the room again. “We could go, be free. You could kiss all the people you wanted and no one would blink an eye that they were all men. They’d be doing it too! Can you imagine?” Remus sagged back against a wall, dreamily staring at the ceiling.

“Do you think we’d be happy out there? Isn’t the West a little...uncivilized? There aren’t settlements or technology like what we have?”

“Roman, this could be our only chance to ever be happy. Why are you so concerned with Mother and Father and houses? Do you want to spend the rest of your life in a relationship you don’t want with a woman you find nice at best?”

“No, of course not!” he snapped back.

“Then what’s the problem? We could be free, Roman. Freer than any other person in this world. Why are you so set against that?” Remus stood up straight, eyes hard and a challenge in his words. “Why are you scared?”

“I’m not!” Roman said the words, felt them reverberate in the space around them, but he knew they weren’t true no matter how convincing they sounded. He’d spent his whole life resigning himself to a future he didn’t want, and now the dream he had tried to crush time and again was standing before him, ripe for the taking, and everything he thought he knew was being proven false before Roman could even understand the implications. Leave home? Go West? Be free to be himself? It was an incongruous thought, it barely even made sense in his head, but the more Remus said it…

The realer it felt.

“Then let’s go. Let’s pack our bags and leave tonight after everyone’s asleep. If you’re so worried about our parents, leave them a note. Please, Roman,” Remus said, and Roman realized that his brother might be brash but he was just as petrified of their futures as he was. “We can have lives if we leave. But we’ll die here and you know it.”

“Are you sure? Are you sure that it won’t just be worse?”

“It can’t get any worse, can it?” Remus asked. Roman had to give him that. What they had was nothing. They only stood to gain. “And, with every other person that goes, the more gay people there will be out there. And the less here.” Roman took a steadying breath, thinking it through. It sounded strangely sensical to have come from Remus.

“Okay. Let’s go tonight. We’ll find the West and whatever lies beyond.”

“We’ll be cowboys!” Remus crowed, bouncing away from Roman gleefully. “We’ll be cowboys who kiss other cowboys and we’ll-”

“Shush!” Roman said, laughing. “You’re ridiculous, and if you keep being that loud someone will hear you and we won’t be going anywhere but the asylum.”

“I’m going to go tell the trees goodbye!” Remus yelled, bouncing for the door. Roman caught his arm before he left.

“What was his name?”

“Who?” Remus asked, lost.

“The man who told you he was going West? Who was it?”

“Oh. Virgil,” Remus breathed. “It was Virgil.”

“Mr. Eli,” Roman said. “I could have guessed he was like us.” He hesitated before saying quietly, “Do you love him, Remus?”

“Who wants to do something like that?” he asked, but his eyes were far away. Roman let go of his arm. It wasn’t an answer, but it was all the answer Roman needed.

“He asked me to come with him,” Remus said suddenly. “I told him there was something I needed to take care of here first.”

“Oh,” Roman said. “Well. Thank you.”

“It wasn't for you,” Remus snarked, eyes oddly light. “Why’re you thanking me? I'll put worms in your boots!” He ruffled Roman’s hair as he skipped by and carried on outside, shouting nonsense to the streets for the last time.

Roman sighed, drooping back against the door.  _ West. They were heading West _ . He frowned slightly, fixing his hair. He'd have to write a letter for their parents. Not telling where they're going, of course, but just letting them know they aren't dead. That they are going to lead a happier existence.

Roman walked to his room and sat at the desk, pen in hand. He studied the paper, mind whirring. Did he have anyone to say goodbye to? How was it his socially ostracized brother had more farewells to make than he? He supposed it didn't matter; they'd be going somewhere better for both of them.

When his letter was done, Roman packed a light bag and darkened the room, slipping into bed. He felt lighter and there was an anticipatory tinge to the air. He could not wait to leave.

_ Dear Mother and Father, _

_ We are leaving to be happy. _

_ Your Sons, _

_ Roman and Remus _


End file.
